


blue is the color

by Skyepilot



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Cousy RomFest 2k17, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Framework, Friends to Lovers, Male-Female Friendship, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-10 14:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10439385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/pseuds/Skyepilot
Summary: Daisy discovers a color in the Framework. Written for Cousy RomFest 2k17, DAY 5 · 31 March -  Lola in the Framework





	

"I saw a new color."

"Where?"

"In the Framework."

  
+++

 

He looks so innocent up close.

Innocent and afraid.

Not that she has watched him sleep many times, but she recognizes this apparition wearing his skin.

Fitful movements and the way you wake sore because your body is tense.

How it feels like you never really sleep.

You're not safe. And you're alone in the world.

His eyes flutter open suddenly and he stares up at her, watching him.

He wants to say something, probably something bitter because of how this all came about. But instead, he just looks at her with faint curiosity.

His eyes. The color is different than she remembers. She thinks so.

Or perhaps it's having never let herself look this closely before.

Always turning her eyes away just before he might catch on.

Before the pull of gravity becomes so strong she might say or do something worth regretting.

She's seen them many times, but she's never _looked_.

"Is something wrong?"

It breaks the spell, and he glances over the room. Searching. Not for her, but something else.

His glasses.

She hands them to him from where she was holding them on her lap, and he quickly slips them on his face, like a part of him that was missing.

The color is almost intensified, the way the lenses magnify it. Just slightly.

Now that he can see her clearly, he twists to his side, moving out of her line of sight.

It makes her uncomfortable that he's uncomfortable with her here.

"I'll go," she tells him, standing. "You can come out when you're ready."

Then she makes her way to the door and stops at the sound of his voice.

"Why me?"

It's a bit loaded, she thinks. After all, he knows now that it _is_ him. Specifically.

It's not just a mission, their meeting was no accident.

"You might not want my help, but I need yours."

He makes a funny sound at that, and sits up in the bed.

"A high school teacher."

It sounds like he's scoffing, but there's something else there. The same curiosity from before.

"You know more than you realize," she tells him, turning back over her shoulder.

"You have access to all the information you could possibly want," he reminds her. Of her credentials inside the Framework.

"I could never learn all of that so quickly. You already have it all up here," she goes on, tapping her finger against her temple.

"So you want me for my mind, then?"

She rolls her eyes at the smug tone in his voice, and turns all the way back to him, watches him tuck his hands underneath his head against the pillow.

"Why else would I want you?"

He swallows nervously under her heavy gaze and then shoots up out of the bed, crossing the room towards her.

"Should we get started?"

"I think we already have," she says with a shake of her head, as he follows her out of the bedroom.

 

+++

  
He nods at her, and takes another sip of the beer from the bottle.

They look together at the empty construction equipment in the hangar, frozen in place until the crews return in the morning to continue reconstructing the base.

Half-broken, half-built.

"And what was it?" he asks, turning to meet her eyes, very direct in a way that's unmistakable.

" _Blue_ ," she answers hesitantly, before staring into his eyes. Willing herself to not look away this time. To risk it.

"Only in the Framework?" His voice gives away that he's taking a small step with her.

"I discovered it there. But it's here, too."

 

+++

  
"I don't know, they kind of suit you."

"Because they make me look smarter," he half-jokes, looking down at his left hand settled in his lap.

"No," she sighs, and reaches out over Lola's console between them to put her hand over his.

"Are you afraid to leave, Coulson?"

"No," he shakes his head, then stares up at her. "Yes. Those aren't the things I'm afraid of losing, though."

She squeezes her fingers around his, feels his hand tighten, like he can hold on to her somehow.

"You won't. I promise."

"Then we can make Lola fly," he tells her, fighting emotion overtaking his voice, as he stares out at the horizon.

"Lola can already fly. We just have to fix her."

"What was I waiting for?" he asks her, turning in the worn passenger seat, looking at Lola again like he's trying to imagine her restored, the way she's described to him.

"I'm not sure," she shrugs. "The right time? The right reason?" She can only guess after everything he's been through, the kinds of loss he's experienced.

"For you," he tells her, interrupting her thoughts. "I was waiting for you."

"Oh."

It could be one of his flashes of clarity, or it could be his romanticism.

It _is_ Coulson, after all.

"Find me," he tells her, touching his hand to her shoulder. "Wake me up."

"You know what to do," she says, licking at her lip. "When I'm gone, this version won't be me. It will be someone different. Dangerous."

"I know what to do," he agrees, frowning at her, his face turned pained and serious. "You're not gone yet."

They came up here to enjoy the nice night, before the start of overturning the world.

Setting it right.

They can't allow it to exist this way, even once the team is outside of the Framework.

It's real. Just not their world.

"Fighting for two worlds has kept you very busy."

She lets out a breath, and realizes how much she's been holding in. "At least I don't have to do it alone."

It's such a sense of relief.

"I'm sorry," he sighs, moving his hand from her shoulder to her hair. "You should never have to be alone."

_That_ is Coulson. She knows it with certainty. And she feels herself pulled again, towards uncertainty.

Imagines that he is leaning forward, and this time, maybe...

But they are out of time.

Always out of time.

She gets the notification to come back to the base, that things are ready.

Setting Lola's keys back in the ignition, she turns the engine over to start it.

  
+++

  
They set their bottles down on the workbench and Daisy wipes the condensation off her hands onto her jeans.

Lola just needs a little more work, and then she'll fly again.

This task is simple. It's been an easy distraction from sorting through the last several weeks.

It seems that suddenly, there is time. And she's not sure what to do with it.

Coulson, for his part, has gone quiet again. Reflective and cautious. Gracious in it, but very still inside of it.

She's not sure what to say.

She's afraid of saying the wrong thing.

"Do you think she knows?"

Her hand is on the workbench, ready to lift the tool so they can pick up where they left off.

She lowers it and thinks the question over, as he walks to stand beside her, his prosthetic next to her hand on the bench.

"I would hope so," she smiles. "That some part of me is still in her. Meeting you changed her."

"At least we're, _they're_ , not enemies." His voice sounds warm, like it's filtered through happy memories. "I can't believe we'd be enemies in any world."

"No."

Her fingers slide across the top of his prosthetic, touching his hand the way she did in the Framework.

They had just a moment, and then it was over.

"Do you think they'll fall in love?"

Before she can even think of how to reply, heat overtakes her, she's suddenly radiating and she turns to meet his eyes.

Blue and wide. _Hopeful._ And the color of them. She couldn't stop thinking about-

She pulls him to her, fiercely, like she has no intention of letting this moment get away.

Coulson, for his part, has no longer gone quiet. All desperate pleas and begging noises and grunting as he lifts her up onto the work bench.

But he doesn't stop kissing her. In between, and through it, all the words and sighs, until she has to stop just to take a breath.

"Coulson."

Her fingers caress his face, and then drop to his reddened lips and he takes her hand in his and presses a kiss against her palm, holding it against his face.

"You were just waiting for me," she says, as her voice trembles with the unexpected.

His eyes are big again, wide, and she sees herself mirrored there, feels her heart fill with it.

_Joy._

She pulls him close and kisses him with it.

 


End file.
